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Mitsubishi built Tokyo’s first office block, in the Marunouchi district, 114 years ago, and the firm is behind the area’s current redevelopment into a major financial centre. Overleaf, we dissect a Marunouchi building site…

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Once a nondescript office area with little in the way of shops or restaurants, Marunouchi in Tokyo is undergoing the latest stages of a 20-year transformation into a vibrant retail and financial centre. The next phase will…

Monocle Minute

Republic Day in Taiwan is 1 January, commemorating the founding of the Republic of China by Dr Sun Yat-sen. Both China and Taiwan revere Sun Yat-sen but this year’s celebrations in Taipei will begin a more testing time for…

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Like so many accidental entrepreneurs, Masataka Baba only started his business because no one was offering what he needed. Now, having turned dozens of Tokyo’s disused commercial buildings into rentable properties, his firm…

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Identikit suburban projects and architects without imagination have sullied the reputation of property development but Monocle has tracked down five firms putting passion, innovation and social conscience back into the…

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News that Tokyo’s iconic 1960s Hotel Okura is to be reconstructed has been met with outrage from admirers of its unique design. While Tokyo’s changing skyline is what makes it special, demolitions like this threaten its…

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There are several striking elements to the new Marunouchi Park Building in Tokyo, from its soaring office tower to the perfect replica of a 19th-century red brick building. But the most intriguing of all is its garden,…

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Located geographically and aesthetically far from famed Emirati excess, the €12bn Masdar City project is trying to plot out a new urban vision. But taking root in the desert has proved difficult: so far just 300 people live…

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Alain de Botton, Richard Florida, Jonathan Raban, Ricky Burdett, Roope Mokka and Richard Alston – six leading writers, thinkers and academics give their view on the state of today’s cities, and their vision of the urban…